James Mattis Doesn’t Understand Iran or ‘Moderate Arab Regimes’

During his presidential campaign Donald Trump repeatedly expressed his desire
not to get the United States involved in another destructive war in the Middle
East. He expressed his opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003; he
was opposed to the NATO intervention in Libya [although he
had originally supported the wars in both Libya and Iraq]; he expressed
appreciation for Russia and Iran fighting Daesh [also known as the ISIS] in
Syria, and Iran helping Iraq in its own fight with Daesh there, and he repeatedly
criticized Saudi Arabia, declaring that the Saudis
were "mouth
pieces, bullies, cowards," who
were "paying ISIS." I did not vote for Trump, but like millions
of other antiwar pacifists I was hoping that he would deliver on his realistic
positions regarding the Middle East.

Alas, everything changed as soon as Trump took office. The President’s national
security team, from Defense Secretary James Mattis, to CIA Director Mike Pompeo
and Director of Middle East affairs at the national security council, Derek
Harvey, is virulently anti-Iran. Pompeo has
hyped Iran’s "threat" by claiming that "Iran
is intent on destruction of our country;" has opposed the nuclear agreement
between Iran and 5+1, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) fiercely and wants
to roll it back; has
downplayed the political and economic cost of bombing Iran claiming that
"2000
bombing sorties" will do the job, and has
called for regime change in Iran. He has also claimed that the so-called
"global war on terror" is a war
between Christians and Muslims. Mattis has declared that the JCPOA "fell
short;" that "it
is fun to shoot some people," and has called for a war on "political
Islam." He has also claimed falsely that Iran
and Daesh are in cahoots, which proved to be pathetically false after Daesh’s
recent terrorist attacks in Tehran. Trump national security team been beating
the drums of war, and is putting the United States on a clear path to war with
Iran, one that if, God forbid, happens, all the past and present wars in the
Middle East will look like child’s play, affecting the entire world.

The danger of Trump’s national security team is not only because of its rhetoric
regarding Iran and Islam, but also due to its deeply flawed and dangerous misunderstanding
of both Iran and the rest of the Middle East. Nowhere is this more obvious than
in Mattis’ statements and arguments regarding Iran and the rest of the Middle
East. At a time when the role of Saudi Arabia in creating and cultivating terrorism
in the Middle East and elsewhere has become crystal clear, Mattis
still insists on "the importance of U.S.-Saudi Arabia strategic relationship,"
to the point that he
has been supporting the Saudis criminal war in Yemen, and asked the President
to remove
restriction on U.S. military support for that country. Before his appointment
as Defense Secretary, Mattis repeatedly called
for arming of "Syrian moderate forces"
that exist only on paper and in the imagination of the necons and the War
Party.

As a Marines General, Mattis has had a decades-long
grudge against Iran, which has totally colored his views of Iran, to the
point that he
was fired from his post as the Central Command chief, which is responsible
for all US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, because he was perceived
to
be too eager for a military confrontation with Iran.

Mattis recently granted
an interview to Teddy Fischer, a high school student in Seattle. The interview
reveals Mattis’ deeply flawed and dangerous misunderstanding of practically
every important issue facing that region, varying from which regime is "moderate"
and the true meaning of "moderation," to Iran’s role in that region.
For example, when Fischer asked Mattis, "Do you believe that Middle Eastern
theocracies can be more moderate? If so, what steps can be taken to achieve
this?," he responded, "I was talking to the king [King Abdullah] of
Saudi Arabia, he’s dead now, but was the king a couple years ago, and he said
the only way to improve drivers in Riyadh was to give every girl above the age
of 16 a driver’s license because the men are such bad drivers."

If granting a very basic and primitive right to the Saudi women in the 21st
century is a sign of "moderation," then, Iran is the most moderate
nation in that region. Iranian women constitute over
60 percent of all college students in Iran, have the right to vote (and
drive!), and they are also present actively at every stratum of the society
as lawyers, journalists, social activists, human rights advocates, teachers
and professors, members of the parliament, ministers, governors, members of
city councils, and even vice president.

Mattis then continued, "He [the Saudi King] decided he would give his
boys and girls a four-year scholarship to any college in Canada, the United
Kingdom, or the United States …. He had over 100,000 four-year, free-ride scholarships
going off to Ontario, Canada, and London, England, and University of Colorado
and University of Washington and everywhere else." Yes, but the ideological
education that these girls and boys receive at home is still based on Wahhabism,
the most reactionary and backward interpretation of the Islamic teachings, which
is why hundreds of the same Saudi students left
their scholarships and education in the United States to join Daesh.

When Fischerasked, "How can the United States create an atmosphere
of trust with the Arab people, especially in Iran?," instead of answering
the question, Mattis began attacked Iran and its elections – elections that
do not exist in Saudi Arabia or any of the US"strategic allies" in
the Persian Gulf Area – saying, "It’s not really an election [in Iran].
It’s the supreme leader [Ayatollah Khamenei who] decides who gets to run."
True, Iranian elections are neither democratic – because not everyone can run
– nor fair – because the hardliners control many instruments of power that use
to their advantage – but the elections are completely competitive, unpredictable,
and with meaningful consequences for the lives of ordinary Iranians, which is
why over 70 percent of Iranians consistently vote in the presidential elections.

Most importantly, what Mattis does not say or know is that the Supreme Leader’s
apparent choices have been defeated multiple times in such elections, including
in the elections for the two terms of the former reformist president Mohammad
Khatami, and for the two terms of the current president Hassan Rouhani. And,
when Khamenei’s choice in the 2009 elections, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and his supporters
committed fraud in order to ensure a second term for Ahmadinejad, we had the
democratic Green Movement with millions of supporters that provided the inspiration
for the Arab Spring of 2011.

In the elections that were held on May 19, Iran’s "deep state" had
its own candidate, hardline judge Ebrahim Raisi, and despite the "deep
state’s" best effort and Khamenei’s, he lost by a landslide to Rouhani,
and ever since there has been a fierce power struggle between Rouhani, the people
and his supporters, on the one hand, and Khamenei and the "deep state",
on the other hand. The elections were actually far more interesting than many
others around the world, as
so many taboos were broken and so many redlines were crossed.

Mattis then shed tears for the Iranian people, saying, "So the point is
that this is a country that is acting more like a revolutionary cause, not to
best interests of their own people so it’s very, very hard." The people
of Iran, a nation with an
overall 82 percent rate of literacy, with the rate being 97
percent among the young people; 45
million (out of 80 million) people who use the Internet; thousands of websites,
and its per capita number of bloggers is one of the largest in the world, do
not need Mattis’ tears. They can decide what is good for them. Over the past
20 years the civil society has become increasingly stronger in Iran, and step-by-step
the hardliners and fundamentalists are retreating. The Iranian people will eventually
get rid of the corrupt clerics as well, by the path that they have been taking.

Mattis also said, "The Iranian people are not the problem. The Iranian
people are definitely not the problem….. We’ve got to make certain that the
Iranian people know that we don’t have any conflict with them. I’d start with
that." Yes, but how? The US has not yet invented a bomb or any other weapon
to attack Iran and only kill the Iranian leaders, and not its people and not
destroy its infrastructure, never mind that it would be illegal to do so. The
same claim was made about Iraq. We were told that the Iraqi people were not
the problem, but 14 years after attacking it, one of the most advanced Arab
nations is in complete ruins.

Mattis also demonstrated his lack of understanding of the Iranian nationalism,
as well as his ignorance of the current developments in Iran when he told Fischer,
"You don’t want to unite the Iranian people with that unpopular regime
because if you pressure them both then they will grow together." But, the
US has already done this. The most important reason that 75 percent of Iranians
voted in the May Presidential elections was that they heard the Trump administration’s
saber rattling and beating the war drums. Somehow – and I do not know how –
Mattis believes that he can threaten an entire nation with war and economic
sanctions, but can also demonstrate to its people that they are not the target,
even though he told Fischer that the US must resort to tough economic sanctions
again: "What you have to do eventually is what then Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton did, which was to move sanctions, economic sanctions, against
them and force them to the negotiating table because they want to stay in power."
This is magic, not rational thinking.

Mattis then went on a rage: "They [the Iranians] tried to murder an Arab
ambassador in downtown Washington D.C." Yes, what happened to
that fabrication? After a short period of time in which every imaginable
ridiculous "theory" was offered to buttress the false claim that a
bipolarused
car salesman had been recruited by Iran to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, the
Saudi Ambassador in Washington (and current foreign minister), suddenly the
entire episode died, and we never ever heard of it again. Practically, no credible
Iran expert believed the story (see, for example, here,
here,
and here).

Instead of condemning Saudi Arabia’s war
crimes in Yemen, Mattis attacked Iran. "Right now, they [Iran] have
moved ballistic missiles down to Yemen that were shot into Saudi Arabia from
Yemen," he told Fischer, repeating the Saudis propaganda. This is while
credible
experts have said repeatedly that there
is no evidence that Iran has provided any significant arms to the Houthis
in Yemen, and that even if Iran has provided small arms to them, its
purpose is to make Saudi Arabia’s nose bloody. Otherwise, Yemen has no strategic
value to Iran. And, by the way, if Saudi Arabia commits war
crimes in Yemen, why should the Yemenis not defend themselves by attacking
Saudi Arabia? No sane people want war. But every sane person fights back, if
a war is imposed on his/her nation.

Fischer then asked, "Is Iran the most dangerous country in the Middle
East?" Mattis uttered the usual nonsense, "It’s certainly the country
that is the only reason Assad has been able to stay in power," but later
on contradicted himself by saying, "The only reason that Assad is still
in power is Russia’s diplomatic veto, Iran’s military power, and now Russia’s
military power." So, which is it?

Mattis continued, "For example, for so long when Russia vetoed the United
Nations so they couldn’t do anything about it, the only reason that Assad is
still in power and has killed hundreds of thousands of his own people."
First, no country should have interfered in Syria. I firmly believe that if
the outsiders had not interfered in Syria, the war there would either not have
begun altogether, or it would have ended quickly. But, once one side did intervene,
why blame the other side? Which countries were the first to intervene in Syria?
Mattis should listen to what Joe
Biden said at Harvard University in October of 2014: It was Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Turkey, not Iran and Russia.

Second, the US does not get to decide which regime is legitimate; the United
Nations does, and as of the time of writing this article, the UN still recognizes
Bashar Assad’s regime as the legitimate government of Syria, and that regime
invited Russia to help it, and that regime invoked
its defense agreement with Iran to help it. How does the US justify its
illegal presence in Syria?

Third, it has become a cliché that "Assad has killed hundreds of
thousands of his own people." First, there
is no proof that he did. Second, true, hundreds of thousands of people have
been killed, but
roughly 26 percent of all those killed have been regular Syrian army and its
affiliated forces defending their country against foreign terrorists; about
one-third are civilians killed by both sides, 11 percent are "rebels"
foreign terrorists, and the rest are "undocumented." In addition,
how many civilians has
the US killed in Iraq and Syria during its war against Daesh?

Mattis even accused the Syrian government of allowing "the terrorists
a place to set up camp….," and, of course, "it’s all because of Iran."
In the six plus years of war in Syria, the Assad government has been accused
of a lot of atrocities, some of which are true, and some are false or great
exaggeration, but never has it been accused of allowing "the terrorist
a place to set up." This is new and Mattis presented it without any evidence.

Both in the interview with Fischer and elsewhere, Mattis and other officials
of the Trump administration have repeated another cliché, that "Iran
is certainly the most destabilizing influence in the Middle East." Here,
Mattis does not mention that the BND, Germany’s intelligence services, believes
that it is Saudi Arabia whose military interventions in Bahrain, Yemen,
and Syria have destabilized the Arab world, as do many analysts. Mattis does
not also explain that what he really means by "destabilizing" is that
countries like Iran oppose US intervention in the Middle East and elsewhere.
In other words, what is supposedly being destabilized is what the Pentagon considers
as its right to use the US military anywhere in this world without any opposition
from the indigenous people.

And, who supports Mattis’ contention? He answers the question: "When I
would travel to Cairo or Tel Aviv or Riyadh and from Arabs from Jews, all the
people in the region; that is their view of Iran. " Oh, yes, Mattis’ claim
is supported by the military regime in Cairo that came to power by overthrowing
the democratically-elected government of Mohamed Morsi; the terrorist regime
in Riyadh, and Iran’s sworn enemies among Israel’s far right. As the Persian
proverb goes, "The fox [after stealing the chicken from the farm and eating
it] was asked who is your witness [that stole the chicken}, and the fox responded,
my tail."

It is in this context that Mattis talks about "moderate Arab regimes:
"There are moderate regimes in the Middle East. The king of Jordan, clearly
a moderating influence. The Emirates, the United Arab Emirates, I think almost
a quarter of their ministers, what we would call secretaries of departments,
are women. Everybody drives there, men, women, whatever." Once again, the
measure of moderation in Mattis’ world is that women drive in these countries,
even though as Joe Biden said, Emirates supported the terrorists in Syria, and
Jordan is a dictatorship with a King whose
father was on the CIA payroll for decades, with 60 percent of the population
being Palestinians and suppressed.

Mattis also seems to delude himself about what is going on in these Arab countries:
"By having everybody feel like they’ve got a sense of the future and a
stake in the future, especially the young people, you can create a positive
environment economically, politically, and diplomatically with their outreach
to other countries that can help stabilize things." Yes, because of the
ideological training that the young people of these countries receive based
on Wahhabism, they feel that have a "stake" in the future. This explains
why the young people of Saudi Arabia constitute the
largest or the second
largest group joining Daesh. During occupation of Iraq by US, roughly
half of all members of the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor
to Daesh, were from Saudi Arabia. And how many Iranians have joined Daesh or
any other terrorist group for that matter? None, zilch, nada.

And, then, Mattis makes the most outlandish claim by comparing Muhammad ibn
Salman, the Saudi Crown Prince and Defense Minster to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. He told Fischer, "As the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
put it, he’s trying to change fast from a consumer economy to a productive economy
and that is a revolutionary effort. There’s a carrying capacity in any society
for how much change it can incorporate at any one time. If you study history
you can see Lincoln calculating it, you see FDR calculating it…." So, not
only Salman, a man who
has been described as "impulsive, aggressive" with "poor
judgment;" "not a man who learns from his mistakes or even notices
that he has made them," and "not only a gambler, but one who recklessly
raises his stakes when in trouble," is in the same class as the FDR and
Lincoln, it appears that, after all, Mattis thinks being a "revolutionary"
is good, but only if the revolutionaries are "US strategic allies,"
not Iranians.

Mattis has
a reputation for being rational; a man who thinks deeply about issues, and
is well read. If true, God helps us all.

Author: Muhammad Sahimi

Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and the NIOC Chair in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California, is co-founder and editor of the website, Iran News & Middle East Reports.

How much influence do you think Iran had in Iraq. The Iraq war fanned the flames of sectarianism. Ahmed Chalabi and the Bush administration purposely started a sectarian war in Iraq (half the foreign fighters in it were Saudis). How much influence did Iran have with Chalabi and the Sunni disenfranchisement policies like De-Baathication?

The gist of that line of geopolitical narrative posits that Chalabi was an Iranian agent who upon Iran’s behest undertook to channel Western Israelism to its benefit and portray Saddam’s Iraq, not Shia Iran, as the immediate threat to Israel needing to be destroyed.

Regardless of how true this narrative is, the facts speak for themselves. The U.S. could not seem to resist any pretext to attack Saddam’s Iraq, and, racist, religious and ethnocentric hatred of the Arab by neocons went on full global display.

Is Iranian intel really that good at Sun Tzu, or was it a no-brainer any halfways competent espionage service reading tea leaves could pull off, or was it just neocons being neocons and the U.S. military needs to blame someone else; why not Iran?

Chalabi did little more than clap his hands beside an avalanche waiting to go with or without him.

wars r u.s.

There is no such thing as a “rational” general. Kissing a** your entire career makes rational thinking an impossibility.

Brockland A.T.

The tone of this article leaves one uneasy. The ‘god help us all’ conclusion is not off-base, but the thesis is.

High ranking U.S. generals are consummate political soldiers; what they really think about an issue can never be taken for granted if it too loudly echoes the party line, which for a long time has been ‘bomb Iran’, even before ‘bomb Iraq’ came into vogue. What they excel at is delivering on the otherwise impossibly stupid with supreme competence.

Mattis is also a Marine; that he’s accused of deep thinking, is at the very least something of a mixed compliment. Marines are expected to be the perfect soldiers, as ruthless and intelligent and courageous as they need to be to accomplish objectives. Deep thinking is just another tool of war.

The MIC and particularly the CIA have always regarded Iran as unfinished business since the loss the Shah regime and restoration of indigenous rule. Mattis’ obsession with Iran is their obsession.

Mattis is likely the ideal public bearer of that unfinished business, with the capacity to appreciate the difficulty of bringing Iran back into Western orbit and/or removing its utility to Western rivals, and determination to succeed in that goal however impossible.

Mattis is not a stupid person who does stupid things as the selected quotes imply. If there is a danger, it might be that he understands the Middle East as perfectly well as what he’s expected to do to it, for his true political masters.

john

Didn’t the Saudis just arrest a girl for wearing a miniskirt? Meanwhile in Iran a woman has been appointed head of the national airline.

antarcticus

Sahimi, I’ll contend the Mattis comparison of Lincoln and FDR to bin Salman is actually spot on, all are willing to slay and imprison large populations of civilians at the sacrificial altar of banking and tyranny.